Comparison of Rotator / Slider modules

This page came about as a result of this post that lists Tabs and Slideshow Modules in the Similar Module Review group. The linked post lists several modules that provide either tabbed content or rotating content.
There are two general use cases here:

A device to provide access to large amounts of regular site content from one area of the page (tabbed content).

A device to showcase featured content, often on the home page, in an eye-catching manner (rotating/sliding content).

This comparison page is limited to the latter use case. It is open to discussion whether the ideal eventual outcome of any consolidation between the best features of the best of the modules would be a package that includes both types of feature.

Most popular modules overview

There are many modules that provide some sort of slideshow / rotator functionality, so it can be difficult to decide which one to use. The most popular are shown below; there may be other less popular modules which meet your specific needs more fully, but looking first at the most popular is a good place to start. The actual number of installs for all the rotator/slider modules is shown in the table further down the page (Note: the number of installs changes weekly, and so you should check the actual number of installs on the individual project pages).

Views Slideshow a Views style plugin using jquery cycle. Provides an extensible API that allows other cycles, rotators, and carousels to plug into the module, so they don't need to recreate the Views functionality.

jCarousel This module allows developers and themers to make use of the jCarousel jQuery plugin. It includes a developer API that other modules can use, as well as Views integration in the 2.0 version so that you can turn any list of content or images into a carousel.

Flex slider provides a client-side automatic adaptation of the slides size according to the window size (Responsive). Can work with the Views module. Poor documentation.

Other available modules overview

The following modules do not have as many installs as those listed above, but they all provide some sort of slideshow / rotator functionality.

Dynamic display block Enables you to create and present blocks of content in a dynamic and attractive way. Uses the jQuery Cycle Plug-in.

Backstretch This module provides a field formatter and Context integration for jQuery Backstretch - A simple jQuery plugin that allows you to add a dynamically-resized, slideshow-capable background image to any page or element.

Content Glider Another jQuery plugin for image slider, very easy to use.

Juicebox This module provides an integration between the Juicebox HTML5 responsive gallery library and Drupal. Juicebox is in many ways the successor of Simpleviewer and offers a powerful and flexible image gallery front-end.

Views Slideshow Xtra is an enhancement module for Views Slideshow, providing the ability to create animated slideshow overlays. This module can also help automate the creation of any Drupal 7 Views Slideshow, using the Views Slideshow Xtra Example sub-module, which creates a Slide content type, a default Slideshow View, and example Slide nodes.

Views Fraction Slider - select fields base formatting and allows you to animate multiple elements per slide. Set different animation methods like fade or (from) left, delays and easing for each element, or simple set some defaults in the plugin options. You also have full layout/design control through html and css (every html-element can be animated).

Slider - create a "slider" content type with a multi-value nodereference field to create carousel-style sliders of the referenced nodes.

Ajax Slideshow - Sequential presentation of any of the site nodes, using various effects. The slideshow is ajax-based which means the page load-time is agnostic to the amount of content included.

Media Nivo Slider - Provides the ability to expose the content of a Media Gallery to a Nivo Slider block.

Nivo formatter - Nivo formatter is an image field formatter that transform any image field
to awesome Nivo Slider image gallery.

Views Slideshow Cycle2 - Updates Views Slideshow from Cycle to Cycle2. You get responsive design, lazy loading, and a few other improvements. Views Slideshow Cycle2 uses jQuery Cycle2, a module you can use from any module or theme code. Beta testers welcome.

Slick Carousel - A full-featured views and field formatter that handles responsive images and video.

EasySlider - create a list-style view with a block display and the view results are displayed in a carousel style slider. Maintainer recommends Views Slideshows instead.

Node Carousel - create carousels of nodes based on nodequeue or custom values using a hook in your own module. Maintainer recommends Views Carousel instead.

CCK Multimage - a fork of the abandoned CCK Slideshow module which creates slideshows from multivalue imagefields. Only available for Drupal 5

Fancy Slide - create slideshows with thumbnails, descriptions and a selection of transition effects by using the imagecache module and optionally a nodequeue. Not supported anymore. Only available for Drupal 6.

Module feature comparison

This feature comparison is based on a spreadsheet done by stephthegeek.
For the purposes of discussion and comparison of these modules, the word tab refers to "the bit that you click on to switch to the next piece of content". In many of the rotator modules this is refered to as a thumbnail.

In advanced slideshows you make fields available to the ddblock themes via preprocess functions (flexible)

Disadvantages or areas in need of improvement:

Ajax loading of content

In advanced slideshows you have to make fields available to the ddblock themes via preprocess functions

Of note:

Uses the jQuery Cycle plugin

In summary:
Flexible module with multiple input options. Multiple pager options. Most needed settings of jQuery Cycle plugin configurable in configuration page, otherwise you can use custom jQuery Cycle plugin settings field to set other settings. Can work together with jQuery Easing plugin. For tabbed content easy to combine with Quicktabs module.

Views Rotator

Benefits over other modules:

Simple to install (doesn't require downloading a plugin as it's included in the module)

Very clean and smooth UX

This useful feature is achieved in very few lines of code - the module files are few and short.

Disadvantages or areas in need of improvement:

The options are very limited.

It includes the jQuery Cycle plugin at the start of its own js file, but given that there currently is no real solution for jQuery Plugin management in Drupal as yet, it's probably no worse than any other way of doing it.

Of note:

This is a Views style plugin

Uses the jQuery Cycle plugin

In summary:
This is quite a minimalist approach to the rotating Views idea. There are no transition effect options and - most significantly - no tabs. Otherwise, it is a very clean solution.

Views Cycle

Benefits over other modules:

Optional tabs that can be configured to hold the output of any field from your View.

Offers all the transition effects that come with the full jQuery Cycle plugin as options

If using tabs, you can choose whether the transition happens on hover or click of the tabs.

Straight-forward configuration

Disadvantages or areas in need of improvement:

Need to download the jQuery Cycle plugin separately, which some may find awkward.

No prev/next links

The skin that's provided with the module is quite buggy. Also, regardless of skin option, the output behaves strangely with regard to the ordered/unordered list of the main content - the first item gets its bullet or number displayed and the others don't.

Of note:

This is a Views style plugin

Uses the jQuery Cycle plugin

In summary:
Views Cycle is a pretty powerful variation on the rotatable Views theme. The configurable tabs are a huge plus. Unfortunately they don't as yet work with combined fields - see this issue.

Views Slideshow

Benefits over the other modules:

Extensible API

Has an option for tabs

Seems like it is highly configurable for different use cases.

Disadvantages or areas in need of improvement:

Configuration options are quite confusing

Lacking the generous selection of transition effects that Views Cycle provides, this module only provides fade or nothing, though that's probably enough for most people's needs. (However, as future plugins to Views Slideshow are made available, this should be alleviated.)

Tab content is not configurable

Of note:

This is a Views style plugin

Uses its own js for the rotation

Has an API that allows other plugins to extend the functionality

In summary:
This module seems a little rough around the edges and could do with some clearer directions on the configuration screen. "Slideshow Mode: Thumbnail hover" means that you can have tabs that trigger the rotation, they do this on hover, and they contain the title and teaser of the node. When tried with a View that was outputting just title and an imagefield, the thumbnails contained the title and the imagefield and the rotating content consisted of title and teaser, which is not the expected behaviour. There's also a "Mouse hover" option which has one single radio button, "hover", but it seems there would be other options if the "Hover Intent" module were installed and enabled. Overall, highly configurable but not a very intuitive interface.

Views slideshow: Dynamic display block

Benefits over other modules:

Mapping of field to slideshow themes. (v2.x)

6 example themes available with number pager, prev/next pager, link pager, image pager and image/link pager and scrollable pager or a combination of these (v1.x - v2.x)

Commercial slideshow themes available (v2.x)

Example module available with different pager settings (v2.x)

Well documented (v1.x - v2.x)

Possibility to make fields available to the slideshow themes via preprocess functions (flexible) (v1.x - v2.x)

In summary:
Flexible module with several available slideshow layouts. Multiple pager options. Most needed settings of jQuery Cycle plugin configurable in configuration page, otherwise you can use custom jQuery Cycle plugin settings field to set other settings. Can work together with jQuery Easing plugin. For tabbed content easy to combine with Quicktabs module.

Views Slideshow: ImageFlow

Benefits over other modules:

Implements a CoverFlow-like slideshow

Uses the API offered by Views Slideshow and Drupal.behaviors, so it's lightweight

Disadvantages or areas in need of improvement:

Requires a third-party JavaScript plugin, which has a small fee for commercial uses

The "reflection" option normally offered by the plugin is not currently available

Slideshow Creator

Of note:

Uses jQuery Plugin module to add the Cycle plugin.

Allows slideshows to be placed anywhere within text content by use of an input filter.

Allows slideshows to consist of arbitrary images or entire directories of images.

In summary:
This module involves creating a new input format so that you can place code like this into your node body: [slideshow: 2, img=|http://drupal.org/sites/all/themes/bluebeach/logos/drupal.org.png|drupal.org|Drupal|The ultimate CMS. Download it now!|Drupal|, img=|http://www.mysql.com/common/logos/mysql_100x52-64.gif|http://www.mysql.com|MySQL|Free and reliable SQL server and client.|_self|, dir=|files/|yes||Generic Photos|Aren't they great?||]

Featured Content Slider

Of note:

Creates up to 3 blocks of sliding nodes

Uses its own js code which is not jQuery

In summary:
This pulls nodes of a given type into a slider block. You can create up to 3 blocks using different node types for each. The JavaScript code suggests there is ajax loading functionality. Also, the js code is needlessly bulky as it does not leverage jQuery at all, never mind jQuery plugins. Otherwise, a fairly smooth UX.

Slider

Of note:

Uses its own js in conjunction with jQuery.scroll.js to achieve a carousel effect.

In summary:
There's a fair bit of set-up involved here to create a slideshow and it's based on CCK multi-value nodereference fields. Not very flexible.

Easy Slider

Of note:

Uses the Easy Slider jQuery plugin, which ships with the module.

In summary:
Very similar to Slider, except that it works with Views.

Views Carousel

Benefits over the other modules:

Easy set-up

Provides good basic styles

Disadvantages or areas in need of improvement:

Easing effect option is a textfield with directions sending user to a jQuery docs page for options; one has to scroll down and search to eventually find this: 'There are two built-in values, "linear" and "swing".' - one would expect more options when being sent all the way to another site to find out what they are.

Of note:

This is a Views style plugin

Uses the jCarousel jQuery plugin

In summary:
A good, clean UI with straight-forward configuration options, an exemplary implementation of the jCarousel jQuery plugin for Drupal sites.

Node Carousel

Benefits over the other modules:

Apparently has an AJAX option (untested)

Disadvantages or areas in need of improvement:

The module is not well maintained and the documentation is out of date.

No functional 6.x version available - looks like development simply stopped on this before it was ready

No Views integration

Of note:

Works with Nodequeue

Uses the jCarousel jQuery plugin

In summary:
There is either a git tagging problem or a lack of adequate documentation: - the jcarousel plugin does not come with this module although it exists in git, and there are no instructions as to where to get it or where to put it. With the plugin in the module directory, Nodecarousel did not do anything. Also there were numerous php notices.

An early but stable slideshow module that aims to provide a nicer, fancier interface to the end user than other offerings, while maintaining an array of customisation options. More work is needed to bring views integration to the module.

Bottom line

You often remarks like this in project descriptions and issue queues:
- "EasySlider is being developed into a views plugin"
- "I'm thinking of rejiggering it as a views extension" (Nodecarousel)
- "I am planing its integration with Views" (Featured Content Slider)
There has already been so much duplicated effort here, it's time for that to stop and for some consolidation to happen. Within the somewhat broad use case of eye-catching, rotating content, there are two distinct use cases, meaning justification for at MOST two modules here:

Passive user: throw featured content at them while they're on your front page

Active user: allow users to navigate / scroll through content to find what they're looking for (e.g. thumbnail images in a gallery)

Two modules that exemplify these two use cases are well {Views Cycle OR Views Rotator} and Views Slideshow respectively. There's no reason why features from Views Rotator / Views Cycle / Views Slideshow couldn't be incorporated into one module and likewise with all the carousel/slider-type modules for the latter use case.

There is also a strong need for a standard way of including jQuery plugins, as per this thread. Wouldn't it be awesome if you could just choose "jQuery plugin" as your Views style and then in the settings for that style you would choose which plugin to use, e.g. Cycle, Accordion or Carousel. Of course there are different config options for each of those but... maybe getting closer to that ideal isn't too wacky an idea.

Comments

I found this page traing to get slideshows to work on my multi-lingual sites.

After getting slideshow_creator to work on the basis of the book by Mark Nobel (Drupal 6 Site builder Solutions) I realised this module was not working on a mulit-lingual site and then I found it was no longer supported.

Have a look at the issue: Multilingual settings are not saved in the issue queue of the dynamic display block module for more information how to set up multi-lingual slideshows with the dynamic display block module.

There are several multi-lingual sites on the internet using the dynamic display block slideshows successfully.

I was searching for what you describe as a "passive user" type block to add to my home page so to automatically scroll through featured content.

This post has really made sense of what is out there.

I wish there were more cases of this kind of information on drupal.org because there are getting to be so many modules out there that the most consuming part of developing a site in Drupal is characterized as either wading through the modules available to accomplish a task or the theming of the site.

I also wish there were more video examples of what a module does or how it works.

from a book I learned about setting up "Slideshow Creator". It is not maintained any more, but it is working and is running still on www.sds-i.com for one of clients.

Otherwise we use Views Rotator and Views Slideshow - but you need CCK for that and understand Blocks and Views.

Slideshow Creator needs to have the images in the right location and you need to set the Input Format correctly - then all you need is to enter the syntax in any block or page and remember to activate the right Input format.

I would suggest adding two very important attributes to the comparison, SEO friendliness, and graceful degradation in the absence of javascript.

Ddblock for example, is SEO friendly (whereas most people know that Flash is generally not), but does not work at all with javascript disabled, although it's being considered (http://drupal.org/node/396892) for a future version.

Usually you can get around this limitation by sniffing if js is disabled in the browser, and then using a different template altogether or just providing alternate functionality within your template. It may seem clunky but that's the only way I know around the issue at the moment.

Surprisingly, Drupal doesn't seem to have focused on the issue of javascript degradation much in the past, though it is being actively discussed for D7. Even the seemingly simple collapsible fieldsets in CCK forms do not degrade gracefully, in fact they don't work at all (collapsed sets won't open).

I've seen endless discussions about how many people actually disable js with numbers cited between 85% and 99% as reported by various sources, but ultimately you have to take stock of who your typical visitor is. Then of course there's the whole issue of accessibility with screen readers for the blind, and other similar issues.

An early but stable slideshow module that aims to provide a nicer, fancier interface to the end user than other offerings, while maintaining an array of customisation options. More work is needed to bring views integration to the module.

I need a slideshow tool that allows users to create a slideshow out of the photos they have uploaded as attachments to a node. It could be one node per photo or multiple photos per node, I don't care. The point is there could be hundreds of these slideshows on the website, as each user builds their own set of slideshows. I don't see the question of user-generated slideshows addressed in this review, and as I read through the documentation of various options, many of them expect the tool to be used as a single slideshow on the front page that is edited by the administrator. This is not what I need -- I need user-generated slideshows. I think views slideshow can handle this -- are there any other options?

I have a similar need for user managed slide shows that must have an intutive user interface and user setup since this will be administered by a user. Have you researched this any further? I can spend some time helping if you have an approach.

When using the dynamic display block module it is the admin of the side who installs and configures the ddblock slideshow style layout.

Users could be allowed to provide the content for the slideshow.

There are different options:

User adds nodes with a title, a slidetext and one image. These nodes will be added to a slideshow. (in this option user provided content would be added to a featured slideshow, e.g. show 10 most recent posts, or you can also let a moderator decide which posts are promoted to the featured slideshow.)

I've been reviewing Rotator and Slider modules for about two days now. They are in the same boat as related content was, until FC. This module does this and that one does that. Each with thier trade offs of pros and cons and with less attention to javascript degradation (<- new knowledge for me).

I like DdBlock, as it offers the most in eye candy, but I have found Ddblock to be confusing to install for embedded content. I'm also seeing some differences between IE8 and FF and a few unexpected effects during a browser refresh.

This review has been very helpful and the goal of picking a module to be right on target. As mentioned above and sorting through these modules there are a few points I try to remember as I sort through the eye candy (the two well defined points from post above and two of my own requirements):

Passive User: throw featured content at them while they're on your front page

Active User: allow users to navigate / scroll through content to find what they're looking for

Look - this hasn't been touched for a while, and I've noticed now that Views Carousel works pretty darn well, and uses the same jCarousel library that this module did. I suggest using that module instead of this one.

Just wanted to thank you for this comparison, I was only just beginning to try and compare the slideshow modules that I found (I too am looking for passive user slideshows of node types for front page), and stumbled onto this. THANK YOU!

So to users who have also been looking for users to be able to upload images to a gallery and then make a slideshow of them: have you had any success so far? What was the module combination you ended up with???

I use Views Slideshow, with images added through Views Gallery (imagecache creating various image sizes/categories that views slideshow can use). Mainly for small slideshows in blocks.

- also find the Image Flow worth a look.

Have the Views Carousel in use, but so far haven't got into editing css, which you evidently need for optimum carousel. [With Image Flow, a nifty thing is that it resizes according to size of space it has: can be big on a page, small in sidebar; but more for flicking thro images than as carousel]

It's all very well to say "with so many other options why would you want anything so basic?" But the comparison chart shows that this is the only module that allows manually selected images. I have a site with hundreds of slideshows based on individually selected images.

If it is so basic, if much better solutions are available, can someone tell me which module that happens to be? Cheers!

Nice comparison. After so much trying I realize that none of these modules can show a slideshow of static blocks. That is to allow a selection of multiple prebuilt static html blocks and then display them one after another.

I would like to spend a few words about Rotor Module. I think this module is very easy to set up and use.
Unfortunately many Rotator/Slider modules are very difficoult to set up instead. Rotor Module is the best module that fits my needs. In fact it is used to display a news and an image that is related to that news. Unfortunately it still has a missing feature: it doesn't display a short teaser.
However, I guess this feature will be easily added. I also modified my theme in order to best use this module by creating a block-views-rotor-block_1.tpl.php and editing the rotor.css file within module directory and .css theme file. It was not very difficoult and this may not be necessary with other themes.
You can take a look a my rotor module in action by visiting http://www.lamaddalenapark.it.
Hope my post will be useful to some of you.

there isn't slideshowcs
Benefits over other modules:
Several parameters can be customized such as the images to display, zooming, position, transition:
X refers to the initial position, in percentage.
Y refers to the final position.
Zoom is the size of the shown picture relatively to its original size. Write the number in the format: 1.4 (decimal number with "." for floating point.
Time is how long the picture is displayed (in seconds)
Set the number of blocks you want to show (max 20)
For more information see project page.http://drupal.org/project/slideshowcs
Of note:
The module uses jQuery plugin Cross-Slide
In summary:
Slide Show CS is a module which provides a block (or more block) with a fancy slide show effect.

* Content comes from Views. Easy to control content for gallery.
* Best for a beautiful image gallery. If you want another kind of gallery use Views Slideshow.
* Can use fields from different nodes or fields from a single node for gallery.
* Easy setup, all settings options are available in the views style.
* Integrates with imagecache / image styles to resize images automatically.
* Navigate gallery with keyboard.
* Theme functions exposed to theme developers to build straight into themes.

This is specifically designed for an image gallery but can also be used for a front page gallery or carousel. Thus it is easy to setup but rigidly defined for that purpose. If you need more flexibility I would recommend Views Slideshow

My agency is using these three regularly, and I would highly recommend them. We've used some others on this list too, but only sparsely and they were for specific client requests (e.g., Ajax Slideshow for, well, an ajax slideshow). For Slideshows, View Slideshow in particular is incredibly powerful/customizable. Galleriffic is a nice out-of-the-box solution that looks and works great. For a carousel effect, Views Carousel is awesome and similar to Views Slideshow in that it's easily extended depending on the project.

Media Nivo Slider

The Media Nivo Slider module provides Nivo Slider functionality to Media Galleries (http://drupal.org/project/media_gallery). This module provides the ability to take any media gallery and expose it's images as a Nivo Slider slideshow which is contained in a Drupal block. These Nivo Slider blocks allow you to easily add a slideshow to various pages and in various regions of your site.

The Nivo Slider blocks are individually customizable so each of your slideshows can have different transition effects, speeds, etc. In addition, since the Nivo Slider blocks are sourced from a media gallery, the ordering of images in the slideshow can easily be changed by simply re-ordering the media in the gallery. This also allows for strictly curated slideshows and the ability to easily have the same image be a part of multiple slideshows if desired.

Yes there probably are too many slideshow modules. It is a real phenomenon that someone, full of enthusiasm, starts a module, loses interest, and the few dozen users are left out in the cold. But is a single-minded adherence to eliminating duplication the answer? Take the "only two modules" listed by the article: neither of them covers Slideshow Creator, which has no substitute and has 1,500 users at time of writing.

Here's the basic problem with the "no duplication" religion: human beings are creative by nature. If they can't create, they most likely won't contribute at all to merely polishing someone else's idea. Central organisation is necessary to eliminate duplication, and central organisation is a very bad way to get creative work done. Do the rationalisation mavens have a purpose? Yes. There are undoubtedly things that can be consolidated to good effect. But usually that will happen only after the original creation. And the best target is probably neither the multifarious confusion of modules we have now, nor the hyper-rationalised and probably impossible "two modules" proposed by the article text.

May I suggest adding a sortable table with a column that shows popularity (how many times each module has been downloaded up to the current date) and a number of features included? I think that would be a great touch to this page.

Views Slideshow: Dynamic Display Block
For me it is a mess... Took half a day to figure out, very confusing documentation, messed up installation process, no settings in site settings regardless thats where half of the tutorial videos is rolling, example files missing, at the end I cant even change the width in css, the thing does not respond unless *{width:100%;} is deleted from my system css. I had a bad feelings about at the beginning, but because of the reviews plus the number of installs I decided to go ahead with it, which was a huge mistake, It just feels like some I went back 10 years of time when you had to pull out your hair in order to make any step of the setting up process to be completed, and then at the end it wont work ....

My need is to display a view of image fields as slideshow or gallery with pager as small pictures. Views Slideshow built-in Cycle is ok, but no ajax support.
Simple task but can not find any solution at all. Anyone? Any modules available???

Both modules are in use at a couple of sites and could use your beta testing. contact me through the contact page with details of what you need. I will look at setting up a demonstration page you can copy.